The Phoenix
by Noizz
Summary: It's been sixteen months since John watched Sherlock fall from a rooftop, and John, now struggling with alcoholism and depression, is almost ready to give up. That is, until he starts to receive cryptic messages from the caller ID "Holmes". Originally thinking it is Mycroft, John becomes even lower, until he realizes the clues may in fact lead to something he never dreamed of.
1. Chapter 1

_ 16 months after The Reichenbach Fall_

Whiskey. John's old mate never had liked the taste of it, and seeing as how John really was never fond of it himself, he never kept great stores of it. Of course, that was when Holmes had still been around.

Three AM, and John sits, like too many other nights, too tired to weep, and too drunk to do much else than stare dizzily at the yellow smiley face that – for one reason or another – had been spray painted on the surface of the peeling wallpaper.

His thoughts are on Holmes again; a giggle escapes him that seems quite out of place as he glances over at the skull atop the mantelpiece that dons an old fashioned deerstalker like some kind of grotesque mannequin. The hat is in the exact place it had been since Sherlock Holmes last placed it there, after deciding pointedly that it was "_and ear hat, John_!"

Watson let go another round of humorless, drunken chuckles at the memory before taking another large swig of whiskey, then passing out not two minutes later.


	2. Chapter 2

Watson awoke, dazed and slightly confused to the insistent whine of a dog early the next morning. Toby, Mrs. Hudson's new bloodhound puppy, was a very punctual creature, who made sure he got his breakfast every morning at 7 am sharp. And who had also taken to - instead of voicing his complaints to the little old lady that had brought him to the flat in the first place – decided John was a much more worthy target.

"I'll get you in a while Toby, just move along for now please." Watson groaned. It was hardly any use. The puppy continued to whine and scratch at the door, and despite the efforts John made to ignore the ruckus, he eventually gave in and rose from the couch. Whiskey, in doses like John had taken the previous night, made for a very good sleep aid, although the other effects that come with consuming alcohol had not worn off yet. That, combined with the lack of actual hours he had slept, turned the messy flat in to somewhat of an obstacle course, and made it very easy for him to bang his shin on the coffee table while on the way to let the dog in.

As he swore at himself, he rubbed his newly bruised leg (which, he noted, was the same leg that had suffered a limp that Sherlock had pointed out was in fact, psychosomatic), and let the dog in. As Toby happily scrambled through the door, John glanced over at the cane he had used back then, sitting disused and dusty in an umbrella stand in the corner. Everything was still the way it had been when he and Holmes had occupied the same flat. He'd done away with the various "specimens" in the refrigerator when he realized they had started to smell, but otherwise, things remained virtually untouched.

A bark startled him out of his nostalgic daze, making him jump.

"Alright, okay! No need to shout." John clambered in to the kitchen then, careful this time not to collide with any of the furniture, though the room still continued to swirl a bit at the edges of his vision. To satisfy Toby, he put down a plate of sandwich meat for him, then put on a kettle for himself. If it had been any other day of the week, he would have immediately stumbled back to the couch and slept a few more hours, but it was Thursday, and he needed to keep Mrs. Hudson believing he was still seeing a psychologist. So he would go find a quiet place to do his "therapy", typing a up an entry for his new blog and sipping on a warm cup of tea (with a secret shot of whiskey to calm the nerves).

Toby whined as he finished his plate of turkey and padded over to Watson, plopping down under the table, directly on top of John's feet. He sighed as he waited for the kettle to boil; he couldn't help staring at the smiley face again, now just a macabre wall piece with a few bullet holes speckled around it. As he pushed back painful memories, the wail of the kettle rang out through the flat.


	3. Chapter 3

John made it out of the flat with relative ease, if one discounted Mrs. Hudson inquiring as to why he was going to therapy with a laptop, and Toby making desperate attempts to escape out of the front door. As he had been doing for the past 16 months, he had tucked a flask of whiskey away for later, in the inside pocket of his warn-out military jacket. A fleeting thought had crossed his mind that straight, sober tea would have been better for his health and well-being, but that thought went by as quick and passive as a bit of paper in a windstorm. He remembered suddenly that he really, truly, didn't care, to put it quite bluntly. He sat down then, finding himself at an old and familiar spot. As he set his day bag down next to him, a conversation replayed in his head that seemed next to ancient.

_No one would share a flat with me._ He had said, shrugging the idea off without a second thought.

_Funny, you're the second person to say that to me today._

_Really? Who's the first?_

_If that had gone differently_, he thought. _If that conversation never would have happened… I would have never known him. I would have been spared the pain of losing him._

He dammed himself for following his friend that day. Funny how a single choice could affect one's life in so many ways.

_Sixteen months, _he thought with sad wonder. The flat still seemed deathly quiet. Mrs. Hudson had adopted Toby with the hopes of the atmosphere becoming more loud and boisterous like it had been when Holmes was there, playing violin at ungodly times in the morning and randomly deciding to have target practice with the smiley face and a pistol. Unfortunately, except for the mornings, Toby could have passed for the quietest bloodhound in the whole of London.

John supposed he would have to move again soon. London wasn't quite a place for a single man with a retired army pension. He never preferred the country; it was always too quiet and lonely, but if he kept on in the city, he'd have to downgrade more than his comfort zone would allow. So he'd move out to a small cottage in the country and find another way to cope – like he always did. Whether it be liquid therapy or something else, he would find a way to keep living his dreadfully lateral life.

As he seemed to sink further in to the park bench, he pulled out his flask and decided he didn't, in fact, want to enter anything on his blog. And he didn't want tea at all. Instead, he wanted to continue to drown his constant sorrows in the brownish solution in his flask.

He raised the container to his mouth and very nearly spilled it on himself as his pocket suddenly buzzed with a text. Swearing at himself, he pulled out his mobile and glared at the screen. Two words stood out on a white background.

_Keep Quiet._

John glared venomously at the caller ID after an initial spike of adrenaline. It very clearly read "Holmes". Mycroft had stayed his distance ever since the fall, like he should have. Johns' stomach got sick every time he thought of the things Sherlock's' older brother had revealed to Moriarty, and now definitely wasn't a time for Mycroft to be trying to reconcile, or whatever the hell he was trying to do. Keep quiet? Maybe it was the wrong number. John highly doubted it; British governmental authorities usually don't tend to make mistakes that could possibly cost them their jobs. Maybe it was his idea of a sick joke. Nevertheless, John flipped the keyboard back and locked it. He was in no mood to talk to anyone, especially not Mycroft. So he tucked the mobile back in his pocket and took a large swig from his flask.


	4. Chapter 4

_Watson was standing still in the doorway, paralyzed in every sense of the word. A man stood before him at the top of the stairs, silhouetted against the darkness of the room. The sound of a downpour echoed throughout the stairwell as the man spoke in a voice like a leopard's growl. _

_"You let this happen, John."_

_Watson blinked and felt a warm tear slip down his cheek, willing himself not to fall back in amazed horror. As lightning flashed outside, the figure in front of him lit up. Ebony curls and a pastel blue scarf framed a face as pale as snow, and the man's black trench coat seemed to flow in to the darkness around him, making him appear to float off the ground._

_"You let him win." He uttered. "And you let me die."_

_John felt himself lose control, and let it happen. "No. Sherlock please, I can help you. Let me help you." The last few words came out in pleading, guttural sobs as the staircase before him disappeared, turning in to a brick wall that grew to be seven stories high. "Sherlock, I can help you!" _

_He was in a panic now, as Sherlock tossed a mobile phone down to him, and he caught it in his hands. He glanced at the screen long enough to read __**"You let me die, John**__" then looked up, sobbing. _

_He was already falling. His trench coat trailed behind him like broken wings, and John caught a glimpse of a terrible smile that crossed his face only seconds before he hit the ground in an explosion of crimson red._

_The phone buzzed in his hands again, and a picture of Moriarty appeared on the screen along with another short message._

**_"You loooosssse!"_**

John awoke screaming, and clutching his bad shoulder as it seared with a phantom pain. He heard footsteps rushing down from the floor above and a moment later Mrs. Hudson was standing in his doorway in a nightgown and slippers, Toby glued to her side with his tail up in alert. The little old lady looked frightened and sad. She pushed her sleeves up – a nervous habit – and spoke.

"Dear John, if it isn't another nightmare. I thought you were working on those with that nice doctor lady!"

"I am," he said, wincing with the fading pain in his old bullet wound. "It just takes some time. I can't imagine they'll last much longer. They'll probably fade out soon enough." It pained him to lie to an old woman that had been nothing but kind since they met, but he couldn't afford the psychologist any longer, and it hadn't been helping him anyways. And Mrs. Hudson didn't need to know that.

"They can bugger off any old time now, this is getting a bit old; you wake up screaming almost every night now, dear. I suppose you're getting quite tired of them too."

"Yes, I am." He didn't have to lie that time.

"And you look terrible too, dear. You need a shave in the worst way. And those clothes! How long have you had that jacket on this round, hmm? I should think you ought to be trying to find someone to maybe spend a bit more of your life with, but you're not going to pick up any girls with a nest growing off your face. No boys either, I should think. Oh and you smell like a pub after midnight! You really should stop all this drinking, it's not good for-"

"Mrs. Hudson, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am _not gay, and nor will I ever be._" John muttered irritably. A headache had started again, reminding him that he was quite badly hung-over. "And I told you, I'm quite fine on my own, thanks. A little solitude never hurt anyone."

Mrs. Hudson sighed. "A little, maybe, but it's been more than a year, John. You need someone. You need to… as much as it hurts to say, you need to let him go. He isn't coming back."

She stopped talking and frowned upon seeing the look on Johns' face. He put his head in his hands and rubbed at his sore temples. A long silence passed before Mrs. Hudson suggested she put on some tea, since it was near sunrise anyway. John nodded at the offer, and asked her to throw a few biscuits on the plate while she was at it.

"Not your housekeeper, dear."

"Yes, we've heard that before, haven't we?"

There was no response. He didn't know whether to smile, or sob.


	5. Chapter 5

John always had loved watching the sun rise. It reminded him things always had new beginnings; no matter how dark the night had gotten it was always going to get brighter. That was his philosophy up until the fall. Now, he looked at the star peeking over the horizon every morning and felt nothing but melancholy. His life felt more like a permanent dusk now, things growing darker and darker up until the day the sun would set for good, and leave him lying cold and stiff on whatever deathbed he'd land in.

As he stood at one of the tall windows with a cup of straight lavender tea, he felt nothing at all watching the sun peek its head up just above the canopy of concrete that made up London.

Mrs. Hudson had, in fact, put a few biscuits on the side for John and he had smooched her cheek back as thanks, hoping she couldn't smell the undertone of alcohol on his breath. His drinking problems had mostly been hidden from her, due to the fact that he was either out while drunk, or if he was in, he was passed out on the couch.

Behind him, his mobile buzzed against the wooden surface of the coffee table. He glanced back at it and stumbled off to check it, swiping it up and squinting at the screen.

_Interesting choice for dog food this morning. Sandwich Turkey?_

Another from the same caller ID. Holmes. Watson threw the phone across the room, willing it lackadaisically to land on something soft and not break in to pieces, but then heard a harsh thud directly after as the phone hid the wooden floor. He ignored it and decided if these messages kept up he would visit Buckingham Palace himself, and speak to Mycroft directly. He put his cup of tea down, but before he could reach for a nearby bottle of brandy, he heard the phone buzz again with another new text.

"Oh for-!" Trying to keep the profanities at a minimum, as Mrs. Hudson had gone back to bed, he stomped as quietly as he could over to the bit of floor that the phone had landed on and swiped it up again. He blinked twice, and his mouth fell open.

_Let's have lunch, Doctor Watson._

He shook the thought out of his head. Irene Adler had lost her head to an angry group of terrorists. She was dead, just like he was. Cold, dead, and lying in the ground.

Mycroft was playing with him; toying with his brain like a schoolchild with a bit of clay.

_But… he never got hold of that phone. He never knew about those texts._

He finished his nearby cup of tea in a hurry and rushed off to the shower. He thought to himself that he shouldn't be smelling like a mixed bar if he was going to Buckingham Palace for the day.


	6. Chapter 6

As a child, Buckingham palace had always been a wonder to John. He used to love to watch the changing of the guards, and would sit for hours wondering how marvelous it would be to be in such a beautiful building to work. It was nothing to him these days – just another government building with fancy architecture. As he waited in the lobby-type room for the elder Holmes brother to grace him with his presence, he caught himself twiddling his thumbs, and promptly stopped after the sudden realization. He was thankful he took the time to do some fresh laundry the day before, and hoped the cologne he used was strong enough to block out any leftover scent of alcohol. He got the feeling no one would appreciate a drunkard stumbling in to the doors of Buckingham Palace and having a nice cup of tea with Mycroft Holmes. It would make the British government look terrible, and he did _so _care about Mycroft's reputation.

He wondered suddenly whether or not he _should _have put any cologne on in the first place.

"It's been a long time, Doctor." An old voice rang out beside the couch he was sitting on. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

John stood up in greeting – an instinct from his military days – then promptly sat down again, as Mycroft waltzed over to the couch opposite, and did the same.

"An explanation of these bloody texts, for one." He held out his mobile, skipping any attempts at a greeting. "What the hell are you playing at?"

Mycroft reached out and gently – almost cautiously – took the phone from John. He frowned as he peered at the inbox menu, and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't help you. These messages don't look the slightest bit familiar."

"Don't play dumb, Mycroft!" John raised his voice, suddenly very angry. It was as if all the rage of Mycroft's old revelation had finally taken bloom after a long hibernation. All of his raw anger suddenly exploded outward, making his face hot and his voice stupendously loud.

"You were the only one they could have given his phone too, after the investigation was over! These are from _his _phone, now unless you want to admit some break-in in which a robber stole a phone off of one of the most highly-guarded buildings in Britain, you tell me the truth, and you tell it to me now!"

John was breathing heavily, his face red with rage as Mycroft stared at him in surprise. A guard had poked his head around the corner at the noise, only to be dismissed by Holmes with a passive wave of his hand.

"John I'm sorry. They never gave me his phone. They never even mentioned it to me."

"What?" he was still furious, but he saw what was undoubtedly truth mixed with confusion written all over the mans' aged face.

"If they had his phone, the thought of giving it to me in memoriam never crossed their mind."

John shook his head, then rested it in his hands. "It says Holmes. I can't see what number it was, it just says… Holmes. How…"

Mycroft frowned. "I'm afraid someone is playing with you, Doctor. I would wonder why."

John jumped, startled as his phone buzzed from within his pocket; another text. He pulled it out and squinted to see the tiny words.

_You've gone soft, Mr. Watson. _

_Pay more attention. _

"Another mysterious message?" Mycroft asked from across the polished coffee table. John nodded in disbelief.

"Well I suppose I do not have to prove myself any further beyond that." Mycroft leaned back to pull his mobile out of the pocket of his dress pants. "This has been in my pocket throughout our entire conversation."

The phone buzzed in his hand once more.

_Let's have lunch._

Glancing up at Mycroft, he flipped the keyboard out on his phone and typed:

_Where?_


End file.
